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Released by: Dark Sky Films
Released on: February 11th, 2014.
Director: Jason R. Miller
Cast: Perry Shen, Colton Dunn, Eddie Mui, Eric Artell
Year: 2013
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The Movie:
2013's Unidentified is the feature directorial debut of Jason R. Miller who cut his teeth as a co-producer and second-unit director on Hatchet 2 and Frozen. Miller also wrote the movie and co-produced the picture as well. The story revolves around four friends - Jeremy (Perry Shen), Dave (Colton Dunn), Nick (Eddie Mui) and Jodie (Eric Artell) - who take a trip to Las Vegas for the weekend. Jodie is filming their trip for his Youtube channel (hence the premise for the found footage shooting style) but also to prove to Nick's wife that they're going to more or less behave himself while away from their respective others. As young men are apt to do in Vegas, before you know it they've gambled away their money and have wound up in trouble with a particularly unfriendly loan shark.
And so they get out of town quickly, heading out into the desert where they find a strange piece of metal. As night falls, one of the men goes missing and the other three head out to find him. They do, but something is off. His behavior becomes unusual and even his physical appearance starts to change. The four friends quickly realize that there's something else out there in the desert with them, something not of this world…
Unidentified has its moments but its two halves never quite come together to form a whole the way that you want them to. The movie starts off very much like a buddy comedy and you have to wonder as it starts to play out if we're not going to wind up with something like The Hangover wherein a group of freewheeling guys get into Vegas-style trouble. In a way, that is what happens but the comedy here is more dialogue based, free flow style, rather than situational. Sometimes it's fairly effective and it does give us some insight into the four different personalities that make up the group, but it does feel disjointed in spots and it goes on quite a bit longer than it needs to.
Which brings us to the second half of the movie (it really is almost literally cut into two distinct parts). It's here that the movie gets darker as whatever 'it' is that's messing with these guys out in the middle of nowhere decides to make itself more obvious. This part of the movie is considerably leaner and far less padded than the first, and it's better for it, but again some more judicious editing would have helped as a few scenes would have benefited from some brevity. There are at least a few moments of effective tension here but those put off by the dizzying effect of found footage style filmmaking might not appreciate the 'camcorder running around in the dark' aesthetic that the filmmakers go for here.
The performances are decent enough and there are some genuinely interesting themes and ideas that run through the storyline but the fact that the movie never really gets past tense and into scary holds it back. We can appreciate what the characters go through but it's tough to completely buy their fear when it's never passed on to the viewership. The filmmakers get credit for crafting a pretty solid ending, the last few minutes of the movie work quite well, but everything leading up to that is just a bit too drawn out and disjointed for its own good.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Unidentified arrives on DVD from Dark Sky Films framed at 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen. As this is a found footage movie meant to look like home video footage you can't expect it to look amazing, that'd ruin the idea. Video quality is fine, the colors look good and the image is pretty crisp. It appears to have all been shot on consumer grade HD, again, in keeping with the concept.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track is fine. It isn't as enveloping or aggressive as you might hope for but it suits the low-fi nature of the movie well enough. Dialogue stays clear and easy to follow and there are no issues with any hiss or distortion of note.
Aside from menus and chapter stops main extra on the disc is a commentary track with director Miller who talks about the ideas behind the movie, how the story came to be, and the locations used for the movie. He also talks about some of the ideas that were originally developed and not used, a few changes that were made along the way and what it was like working with the cast and crew he gathered together for this feature.
Aside from that we also get a collection of 'Jodieman' YouTube shorts (basically the clips that Jodie had recorded for his Youtube channel - fourteen minutes worth of material), twenty-one minutes worth of Space Cam footage (which shows how one key scene in the movie was shot) and the feature's original trailer. A few trailers for unrelated Dark Sky Films properties play before the main menu screen loads.
The Final Word:
Unidentified has some moments of effective comedy and tension but never quite lives up to its potential due to some pacing issues that are pretty tough to overlook. Miller and his crew were obviously working with a limited budget here and the performances aren't half bad but the disjointed nature of the picture hurts it. Dark Sky's DVD release looks and sounds just fine and contains some decent enough extras.
